Encyclopedia of

Charles Lindbergh Biography

American aviator Charles Lindbergh became famous after making the first
solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He was criticized for
insisting that the United States should not become involved in World War
II.

Early years

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born on February 4, 1902, in Detroit,
Michigan, the only child of Charles August Lindbergh and Evangeline
Lodge Land Lindbergh. His father was a congressman from Minnesota from
1907 to 1917, and his grandfather had been secretary to the King of
Sweden. Lindbergh spent a great deal of time alone while young, with
animals and then machines to keep him company. After attending schools
in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., Lindbergh enrolled in
a mechanical engineering program at the University of Wisconsin.

Lindbergh became bored with studying; he was more interested in cars and
motorcycles at this point. He left Wisconsin to study airplane flying in
Lincoln, Nebraska, from 1920 to 1922. He made his first solo flight in
1923 and thereafter made exhibition flights and short trips in the
Midwest. He enrolled in the U.S. Air Service Reserve as a cadet in 1924
and graduated the next year. In 1926 he made his first flight as an
airmail pilot between Chicago, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri.

Famous flight

Lindbergh wanted to compete for the $25 thousand prize that a man named
Raymond Orteig had posted for the first person to make a nonstop flight
between New York and Paris, France. With money put up by several St.
Louis businessmen, Lindbergh
had a plane called the
Spirit of St. Louis
built. On the first lap of his flight to New York, he traveled nonstop
to St. Louis in fourteen hours and twenty-five
minutes—record-breaking time from the West Coast.

On May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off in his silver-winged monoplane (a
plane with only one supporting surface) from Roosevelt Field in Long
Island, New York, bound for an airport outside Paris. Better-equipped
and better-known aviators had failed; some had even crashed to their
death. But Lindbergh succeeded. He arrived on May 21, having traveled
2,610 miles in thirty-three and one-half hours. He immediately became a
hero and received many honors and decorations, including the
Congressional Medal of Honor, the French Chevalier Legion of Honor, the
Royal Air Cross (British), and the Order of Leopold (Belgium). During a
tour of seventy-five American cities sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim
Foundation for the Promotion of Aeronautics, he was greeted by wild
demonstrations of praise.

In December 1927 Lindbergh flew nonstop between Washington and Mexico
City, Mexico, and went on a goodwill trip to the Caribbean and Central
America. During one tour he met Anne Spencer Morrow, the daughter of the
U.S. ambassador (representative) to Mexico. They were married in 1929.
The Lindberghs made many flights together. In 1931 they flew to Asia,
mapping air routes to China. Two years later, in a 30,000-mile flight,
they explored possible air routes across oceans.

Son murdered

In March 1932 the Lindberghs were shaken when their infant son was
kidnapped. A $50,000 ransom was paid, but the baby was found dead. The
nation's concern and horror

Charles Lindbergh.
Courtesy of the

Library of Congress

.

resulted in laws that expanded the role of federal law-enforcement
agencies in dealing with such crimes, including allowing the government
to demand the death penalty for kidnappers who take victims across state
lines.

The Lindberghs moved to Europe after the execution of their son's
murderer in 1935. While in France Lindbergh worked with Alexis Carrel
(1873–1944), an American surgeon (medical specialist who performs
operations) and experimental biologist who had won the Nobel Prize in
medicine in 1912. The two men perfected an "artificial heart and
lungs," a pump that could keep organs alive outside the body by
supplying blood and air to them.

Criticized for political opinions

In the late 1930s Lindbergh conducted various studies of air power in
Europe. He toured German aviation centers at the invitation of Nazi (a
political party that controlled Germany from 1933–45 and that
attempted to rid the country of Jewish people) leader Hermann
Göring (1893–1946), becoming convinced that the Nazi
military was unbeatable. Also in the 1930s Lindbergh was on the Board of
Directors of Pan-American World Airways. In 1939 he studied American
airplane production as special adviser on technical matters. He also
performed promotional work for aviation during this period.

Just prior to World War II (1939–45; a war fought between the
Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan and the Allies of England,
France, the Soviet Union, and the United States), as a member of the
America First Organization, Lindbergh warned that United States
involvement could not prevent a German victory. He was criticized by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) for radio broadcasts
urging America not to fight in "other people's
wars." As a result, Lindbergh resigned his commission in the U.S.
Air Force. After Japan attacked the United States in 1941, Lindbergh
supported the American effort, serving as a technician for aircraft
companies. After the war he once again became a technical adviser for
the U.S. Air Force, and eventually he was again commissioned a brigadier
general in the Air Force Reserve.

Later years

Lindbergh's association with the Nazis had severely damaged his
reputation, but the popularity of the books he and his wife wrote helped
restore some of what he had lost. Lindbergh wrote several accounts of
his famous 1927 flight.
We
(1927) and
The Spirit of St. Louis
(1953), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for biography, are
descriptions of his early life and accomplishments. With Carrel he
coauthored
Culture of Organs
(1938), and in 1948 he wrote
Of Flight and Life.

Lindbergh's later works included
The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh
(1970) and
Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi: A Reminiscent Letter
(1972).
An Autobiography of Values
(1977) was published after his death. Toward the end of his life
Lindbergh grew increasingly interested in the spiritual world and spoke
out on environmental issues. He spent his final years with his wife in a
house they had built on a remote portion of the island of Maui. He died
there on August 26, 1974.

After her husband's death, Anne Morrow Lindbergh continued to
publish books of her diaries and letters. She retired to Darien,
Connecticut, where a series of strokes weakened her. In 1992 she
discovered that a woman whom her children had hired to manage her
affairs was stealing money from her. The state of Connecticut joined
with the Lindbergh children in pressing charges against the woman.

Having made many trips to Maui, Hawaii and visiting his gravesite in Hana on each trip
I am continually comforted that his gravesite is such a serene site.
He and his family deserve such a remote/pristine place to contemplate his deeds.

This did help but, there should be more information about his wife, where they met, what age they were. And you should have more information about the kidnapping! For crying out loud, his son was kidnapped!! You have only two sentences on when he was killed and just plain information that I can't use for my research project. I don't mean too be hateful but, I wish this website would have been more useful.